Metrics that Measure Up

Founding a B2B SaaS company is an exhilarating, yet high-risk experience. Creating a new market category at the same time even higher risk and often serves primarily to pave the path for second-generation market entrants who learn from the successes and failures of the first generation.Anurag Khemka, is a founding father of B2B Marketing Automation. Back in 1996, when the internet was first being commercialized, most B2B marketers were just starting to think about how to develop more personal, 1:1 relationships with potential customers.Anurag founded MarketFirst, the first generation of enterprise-class marketing automation technology.  Developing the software was the easy part, educating an entire market on how to design, build, and execute B2B marketing campaigns on the internet was the real challenge.Marketing Automation is now one of the most mature segments of the MarTech market (8K+ companies).  Marketing Operations is a mature, yet still evolving profession that was spawned out of the need to manage and maximize the return on Marketing Automation investments.Anurag is a founding father of both Marketing Automation and Marketing Operations, and for anyone who seeks to better understand how history predicts the future,  you should listen to this episode!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast - Court Lorenzini, Founding CEO at DocuSign discusses his journey to co-Founding DocuSign and then his decision to leave after five years to found two more companies.During our conversation, Court shared his unique path to DocuSign, including his father's legacy as a founding father of Silicon Valley and his habit of recording his observations of how people managed difficult situations starting at the age of 13.Court  shares his belief that most CEO's are strongest or prefer one of the three stages that every start-up moves through including: 1) Napkin to Product-Market Fit; 2) Rapid Growth and; 3) Profitability.  Court loves, and used the term "Fills my Cup"  when discussing the joy he finds from starting companies and achieving Product-Market Fit.Court also shares his two key pieces of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs including: 1) Pressure test your idea rigorously to the point of trying to kill it early and often and; 2) Learn from predecessors who have attempted to blaze a similar path in your same market previously.Finally, Court shares his premise that founders created 70% of Terminal Value in the first five years of a companies life.  So, if your cup is filled by creating and establishing product-market fit, and you believe in statistical probability, it may serve founders better to repeat the company creation process multiple times to optimize the probability of great success.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast - David Appel, Head of the SaaS Vertical at Sage Intacct shares his insights and lessons learned from over 1,500+ SaaS financial solution implementations.During our conversation, David and Ray discuss several key attributes and approaches that SaaS CFOs take to ensure the data, metrics and KPIs they collect can tell the story of what the "financial data" is telling.Great finance leaders make sure financial information and KPIs get out to everyone as soon as possible to enable timely, data-driven, metrics information decision making.  Great CEOs and CFOs ensure the measures that each department have in place are directly linked to the corporate objectives, and not allow functional leaders to primarily highlight those metrics that show their function in the best light, but not for the benefit of the entire company.Dave ends this episode with a quote from Steve Jobs "Building great companies is not dependant on the hierarchies that run companies, but they are built upon the ideas that run companies".See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, we talk with Jon Miller, co-founder of Marketo and Engagio,  and now Chief Product Officer at Demandbase is a MarTech visionary. Marketo was purchased in 2018 by Adobe for $4.75B, and Engagio was recently acquired by Demandbase.Jon shared the B2B Marketing metrics that matter and the lessons learned in his personal career journey as a founding father and leading MarTech visionary.Jon shared how 1st gen Marketing Automation was designed to automate a linear process with discrete hand-offs between marketing and sales. We also discussed how today’s buying process requires insights into demand and buying intent BEFORE a buyer visits your website.We also discussed how the evolving land and expand customer acquisition model requires a non-linear, collaborative process between Marketing, Sales, and CSThe most interesting conversation for your host was Jon's perspective on the top KPIs for today's B2B Marketersincluding: 1) Pipeline Growth; 2) New + Expansion ARR; 3) Return on Investment.  B2B Marketers still need leading indicator metrics that show how buyers are progressing across the buyer journey, such as stage by stage conversion, but measurements such as website visitors, leads, and content downloads are mostly vanity metrics.As a thought leader in Account-Based Marketing and Account-Based Sales, Jon highlighted this new Customer Acquisition and Expansion model requires new KPIs and benchmarksJon also discussed his decision to leave Marketo and why the time was right now to combine Engagio and DemandbaseJon's comment that he is driven to “build the next great marketing platform”,  coupled with his career journey exemplifies his vision, commitment, and passion for marketing technology#SaaS #b2bmarketing #KPIsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In today's episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, Thomas Stewart, Executive  Director for the National Center for the Middle Market shares some very interesting insights into the 200,000 companies that represent 1/3 of the American economy.Highlights included that 85% of Mid-market companies are private, 33% are family owned and 17% are in the manufacturing industry.  On average, middle-market companies grow an average of 6.5% per year, 3% faster than the average S&P 500 company.Middle Market companies that view Digital Transformation as strategic and are advanced in adoption grow at an average of 9.5%, almost 50% faster than their peers.Lastly, middle-market companies buy technology very differently than larger, Enterprise companies.  They typically will not pilot or test innovation, they will watch...watch....watch and then jump in headfirst.  Definitely not your early adopter persona.A great listen for anyone responsible for doing business in the middle market - or just wants to learn more about the middle market.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In today's episode of the Metrics that Measure Up, Sally Duby, Chief Sales Officer at The Bridge Grop discussed the findings from their Sales Compensation research conducted in August, 2020 in partnership with the Silicon Valley Vice President Sales Group.Sally shares benchmarks and compensation trends across a wide variety of roles including Chief Revenue Officer, Field Sales - Account Executive, Inside Sales - Account Executive, Sales Development Representative, Sales Operations and Sales Enablement.The trends identified since the latest research The Bridge Group conducted in 2018 is quite surprising.  In this episode we find unexpected trends in Equity, On-Target-Earnings by Annual Contract Value (ACV) and how Quotas vary so greatly based upon ACV.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, William Cordes, Founder and CEO of KPI Sense share the insights and perspectives gained from providing CFO and finance advisory services to  SaaS companies.One interesting insight was when William shared that Days Sales Outstanding - the time from invoice to payment  is the financial metric that has been impacted the most at  B2B SaaS companies since COVID.Other key insights discussed include why detailed monthly financial reviews have increased in importance due to the impact of delayed cash receipts, decreased new ARR, and increased cash burn, how multiple scenario analysis + dynamic planning should be used for 2021 planning.We also discussed why the B2B SaaS industry needs more consistent KPI calculation and reporting for public and private SaaS companies - but not currently covered by SEC, FINRA, FASB or GAAP regulations.Lastly, William shares the core KPI foundation that is required for an early stage B2B SaaS company needs to have in place to successfully scale including:-a solid financial data infrastructure & data structure-standard rules to ingest transaction data for analysis-scalable process that works at $5M ARR and $50M ARR-quality data that is consistently maintainedSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up, Kristopher Beible, Vice President at Software Equity Group discusses the importance of Net Dollar Retention on SaaS company enterprise value, both for public and private companies.Based upon insights gained from over 100 private B2B SaaS company acquisitions, Kris shares how Net Dollar Retention & Gross Dollar Retention have become the top KPI that acquirers ask about in the early stage of private SaaS company acquisition due diligenceOther topics discussed include how private SaaS company acquirers have increased the priority of Gross and Net Dollar Retention rates since the on-set of COVID. We also discuss why companies need to develop a cohort-based understanding of customer acquisition costs and customer retention rates PRIOR to starting a strategic financing initiative.  In fact, a cohort-based analysis should be applied to operational decisions 12-24 months prior to starting any investment process.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up, Kyle Poyar, Vice President of Growth at OpenView Partners discusses a Product Led Growth Go-To-Market motion for B2B SaaS companies.High growth B2B SaaS companies like Zoom, Twilio, DataDog, Box and DocuSign have used a product-led go-to-market motion to decrease initial customer acquisition costs, expand the total addressable market and reduce dependency that an Enterprise sales led motion can have on getting executive buyers to engage.Topics discussed include how Gross Dollar and Net Dollar Retention Rates are different from sales led motions, critical KPIs and metrics that seem more B2C oriented and how understanding the marginal Customer Acquisition Costs for Enterprise led versus product-led cohorts is critical to understanding the overall CAC ratio.New terms and concepts for B2B SaaS leaders, including Product Qualified Leads, Natural Rate of Growth and how Free to Paid conversion rates are correlated to # touches are covered in this fast-moving, information-rich episode.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Metrics that Measure Up, we are joined by Byron Deeter, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and one of the founding fathers of SaaS and Cloud Metrics.Byron first published the 10 Laws of being SaaSy in 2008. Over the years, B2B SaaS metrics evolved, and Byron subsequently published the 10 Laws of Cloud in 2019, which include the 6 C's of Cloud Finance.Over the years, BVP has led investments in leading Cloud Companies including DocuSign, Twilio, SendGrid, Eloqua, Shopify and LinkedIn, BVP, and specifically Byron have a world of insights and experience to share with the new entrepreneur, first-time founder and even experiences SaaS or Cloud executive.Bessemer also publishes the Cloud 100, which highlights the Top 100 private Cloud Companies and the BVP 100 Index of publicly traded SaaS and Cloud CompaniesIn today's episode we discuss the insights that the CAC Payback period provides as you evaluate how to accelerate ARR growth, the impact of "marginal" spend on non-organic and paid media customer acquisition.  Why you may need to identify your SECRET KPI, some examples of some predictive KPIs identified by Twillio, Docusign, and Shopify. Why conducting cohort-based Gross Dollar Retention and Net Dollar Retention Rates is critical to ensure you are not under-reporting churn.If you love SaaS and Cloud Metrics, or just want to take Byron's advice to be a scholar of the industry, this podcast is a must-listen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.